"Growing up Online" video

I found this video very interesting and troubling. I was extremely surprised with how much it “played” with my emotions.  I felt like it showed two very extreme sides of technology, especially the opinions of the two teachers.  Although I did not completely agree with either of them I did connect with some of the things each of them said.  One thing that caught my attention is how the teacher talked about is how students have a hard time concentrating on things in class because they are so use to technology moving so fast pace and it is hard for them to slow down and really learn from their class.  I found some truth to that and really connected it with the thought they mentioned in the movie that we are no longer teachers, we are entertainers.  One teacher even stated that students almost need to be entertained to be engaged enough to learn.  This shocked and troubled me because I do not think it is a teacher’s job to entertain the students but rather teach them.  And I am not saying that learning cannot be fun and entertaining sometimes but what are we teaching our next generation, that life is always going to be entertaining and fun.  That is not the reality of life.  If we as teachers always make things fun and entertaining for our students well then we are failing one aspect of our job which is preparing our students for the future and the “real life.” By applying this method to our students we are portraying that life is always fun and entertaining, when the reality of it is that sometimes life and our future jobs won’t be entertaining but sometimes you just need to be okay with that. 

This video has affected my plan for teaching someday, because it really enlightened me on the good things and the scary things of having our students use technology regularly.  As a future teacher and as an individual, I can see the advantages of integrating technology into the classroom, but I can also see its risks.  And although right now I do not plan to use technology in my classroom all the time and I may not use everything like podcasts, wikis or blogs, but I do plan on trying to keep technology integrated into my classrooms while also making sure my students stay safe from the potential “devils” of the web.  But mostly what I learned from this video is that no matter how much technology I decide to include into my classroom, I will definitely make sure to educate my students on how to be safe when using technology because I hope none of my students will ever have to face the dark sides of the internet.